The University of Georgia Speech and Hearing Clinic

10/29/2025

10/29/2025

🎃👻 Who says speech therapy can’t be spooky and fun?

Team Santus put a little magic into voice therapy this week! Our amazing graduate clinicians cast some “voice-boosting spells” 🪄 and yes, we even treated a bewitching patient!

Big shoutout to our brave patient and our talented students for making therapy spellbindingly effective! ✨💜

10/28/2025

Team Hines having some Halloween fun at Grace Arbor with director Lisa Hale. 🎃

Every Monday, graduate students, Livia, Natalia and Lilly have the opportunity to work with participants at Grace Arbor, a dementia respite day program, to strengthen language and communication skills.
This has been a wonderful learning experience with amazing staff and volunteers!

10/27/2025

Thanks for having us back, Dawson Hall! 🙌😊

Team Santus spent the afternoon with Dr. Emma Laing and her Nutritional Sciences students talking all things dysphagia, a swallowing disorder that can affect eating, drinking, and overall health, especially in medical settings. 🍎🥤😷

Olivia Bracewell, Tori Watkins, Katharine Vanover, and Dr. Santus shared real-world examples of how dysphagia shows up across the lifespan, and why it’s so important for speech-language pathologists and dietitians to work together when treating it. 🧠💬🥄

Students even had the chance to taste thickened liquids from Purathick-- huge thanks to Purathick for coming through with the class samples! 🙏💧

We always appreciate the chance to connect with future RDs 👩‍⚕️👨🏾‍⚕️, already looking forward to next time! 👋✨

UGA Department of Nutritional Sciences
-dieteticinternship
Mary Frances Early College of Education

10/17/2025

Today, Team Dellaria, Team Vergara, Team Stewart, and Team Crisler conducted 58 speech and language screenings at Athens Montessori School!

These community screenings help identify children who may benefit from further evaluation of communication skills that are vital for academic and social success.

For our graduate clinicians, these experiences build real-world confidence while deepening their understanding of child development and the assessment process.
We’re so proud of our team for serving our community while growing as future speech-language pathologists!

10/15/2025

October is AAC Awareness Month!

Check out this beginner's guide to learn what AAC is, why we use AAC, some common misconceptions, and some additional resources.
Thank you to our undergraduate CMSD students who summarized these key concepts from the podcasts, "AAC Basics Part 1: Terminology, Roles, & Responsibilities" and "AAC Basics Part 2: Barriers to and Strategies for Effective Implementation," and ASHA Leader article, "A school-based SLP shares how she advocates for the resources and staff to support AAC across her urban district.

10/14/2025

Falling for Communication 🍎🍂

Team Dellaria and our amazing graduate student clinicians from UGA’s CMSD program celebrated the season with DawgTalk at our Fall Apple Festival! DawgTalk is a social support group for people with aphasia, and we’re proud to lead this space where communication, connection, and community come together — with plenty of fall fun on top.

10/09/2025

Kudos to graduate clinicians Ashley Elam and Kaitlyn Murphy for their excellent case presentation for our Interprofessional Education Grand Rounds last month! It was a wonderful discussion, and we all learned so much from one another! Kudos also to their supervisor, Laura Nichols, for her oversight of the case!

10/04/2025

Homecoming Highlights! �MCMSD, Communicaid, and NSSLHA proudly walked alongside MFECOE Dean Spangler at UGA’s Homecoming Parade to represent our amazing program! 👣✨�Shoutout to our incredible undergrad Jenna Dekich for being on the Homecoming Court 👑 and to our grad student Audrey Kittila, Ms. Georgia, for representing CMSD with pride! 🙌�We’re so proud of our CMSD family! Thanks for making this Homecoming one to remember! 🧠💬

09/26/2025

✨ We’re thrilled to share an exciting update from one of our GSHFoundation Community Impact Grant projects! ✨

In partnership with the Athens Area Homeless Shelter, Mrs. Ainsley Vergara, Mrs. Beth Stewart, and some fabulous graduate and undergraduate students hosted a family literacy event earlier this week. Parents participated in small group conversations about evidence-based reading strategies tailored to their children’s needs. At the end of the night, families received their own free books, caregiver guides, and low-tech AAC boards to help build literacy skills at home!

📚💬 These resources were designed to empower caregivers to build meaningful connections through shared reading and everyday conversation.

A huge thank you to the Georgia Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation for making this project possible — and to the Athens Area Homeless Shelter for welcoming us into their community! 💛

09/22/2025

🎉 What an incredible day at the Georgia Chapter Parkinson’s Symposium in Cumming, GA!
Twenty Communication Sciences and Disorders students, alongside five amazing supervisors, Dr. Santus, Dr. Moon, Ms. Dellaria, Ms. Nichols, and Ms. Hines—showed up and made a big impact.

🧠💬 Between the speech-language pathology and audiology teams, we conducted over 70 screenings and connected with hundreds of attendees.

Our own Dr. Santus and graduate clinician Olivia Bracewell gave a packed presentation: "Everyday Wins: Simple Exercises for Swallowing, Voice, and Brain Health", where they led 300+ participants through fun, functional exercises to stay strong while living with Parkinson’s. 🙌

A huge THANK YOU to the for including us and to everyone who visited our table or took part in screenings. We are honored to be part of your journey. 💙